Canada's House Backs Steep Emission Cuts

Published: February 15, 2007

The House of Commons passed a bill Wednesday intended to force the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to achieve the steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions required by the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

The vote was 161 to 113, with all three opposition parties supporting the Liberal Party bill. It still has to go to the Senate, where a Liberal majority should ensure its passage.

The bill would require the government within 60 days to detail the measures Canada would take to meet its Kyoto obligations to reduce greenhouse gases to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Canada's emissions are 27 percent above 1990 levels, and the government has said it would be impossible to meet the targets without doing great damage to the economy.

Labor Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn said the Liberals were simply trying to embarrass the government by trying to force draconian steps that would paralyze Canada.

''If we took drastic measures to the point that companies had to close, that would not be right,'' he told reporters.